


Sparks In Dark Waters

by LananiA3O



Category: Batgirl (Comics)
Genre: Cass is Black Bat, Gen, Post Crisis, batgirl Vol 2 is canon for this, so is Robin OYL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 09:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14376324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: When the drug "Soul" appears on the streets of Hong Kong, Black Bat knows that her investigation is going to lead her to an old enemy: Doctor Death. What she does not know, is that it will also lead her to Thailand and to an old friend: Leslie Thompkins.





	Sparks In Dark Waters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loxare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loxare/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Loxare!
> 
> I so hope that you are going to enjoy this fic, because it was a pain - in - the - ass to write. The plot was like a particularly slippery fish that kept on escaping each time I tried to put it in the bucket, so I barely managed to finish this in time. Also, I wish DC would get their shit together and decide and whether it's "Blackbat" or "Black Bat".
> 
> Anyhow, the goal here was to write a story that would reunite Leslie and Cass, while not sweeping any of the awfulness post Crisis Cass went through under the rug, but also offering a hopeful glimpse for the future. I did try to stick true to her original characterization, but for the sake of this story, all the events in Robin OYL and Batgirl Vol 2 etc. still happened.
> 
> Mood music for this one (aka I had this in a perma loop): Florence and the Machine - Landscape
> 
> For status updates, writing trivia, fandom/fanfiction/writing related questions and occasional random ramblings, please visit my tumblr: http://lananiscorner.tumblr.com/

Sometimes she missed Gotham. The old skyscrapers. The gargoyles. The howling winds. The constant tickle of rain against the material of her suit. The sirens. The smell. Yes, even the smell. Thick, slightly acid and just a little... scratchy? That was not the word, but it came closest to the feeling the smell gave her.

And Black Bat missed that feeling.

Hong Kong had its upsides, no doubt. Fewer metahumans. Fewer completely unpredictable crazies like the Joker. Hong Kong was alive, but still steady as the river running near it. Most of the time, Black Bat did not mind, but the longer she stayed, the more she missed the chaos. Hong Kong was warmer, too, and that was nice sometimes.

This was not Hong Kong though. This was Krabi, Thailand, and Krabi, in Thailand, had none of Hong Kong’s charm.

She had started her out-of-country investigation in Bangkok, a loud, dirty, crowded city, full of life and old power. Bangkok was like... Hong Kong’s estranged little sister.  _Estranged_. The word bounced around Black Bat’s head. She hoped that was the right one. However, even Bangkok had felt weird to her. It was like being stuck over a boiling pot, always hot, always humid. It had made the suit cling to her like glue and for the first time in... ever, really, Black Bat had been  _happy_ , really, honestly happy, to get out of the thing at dawn. She had hung it up to dry, only to slip back into the same sweat-dripping wetness the next night.

Even worse, Bangkok had been fruitless.

The trail had started in Hong Kong. There had been talk on the street about a new drug in town. Something fierce. Something worse than heroin or meth. Reports had been confusing. Some users said it was the best thing in the world. She had questioned one man who had sworn that he had been lifted up onto another plain of existence and reached... enlightenment? Yeah. That was the word.  _Enlightenment._

Others claimed it was the devil. Police officers spoke of people turning violent and even feral. One poor officer had been on patrol with his partner when a crowd had dragged them from the vehicle.

Black Bat had been fast enough to save him. She had not been fast enough to save the other one. By the time back-up got there, Officer Liu had been spread out over an area of fifty square feet. It had not been pretty. Even for Black Bat. And she had seen a lot.

She had also seen this pattern before. Heaven and hell. Angels and devils. She had seen it. She had tasted it. She had felt it.

_Soul._

Such an innocent word, for such a deadly thing. Black Bat remembered Doctor Death, the man who had created it, and The Lost Girls, the gang who had distributed it. The girls were in jail. She had called Robin to check Gotham’s records for her. But Doctor Death... he was still out there somewhere.

Hanoi had been her first stop. The agent there had been a weakling and a coward. It had taken her a total of forty-five seconds to get his statement. The next day, she had arrived in Bangkok.

Bangkok was more difficult. It had as many narrow, winding alleys as Gotham had rats. The fact that Black Bat could not speak or read Thai did not help. It had taken her four days to even find the man. Another two to actually shadow him. It was almost as if he had known that she was coming. She had watched him, every minute of the night, half the minutes of the day, to find out which country she had to go to next. After all, Soul was made from corpses and this man did not have nearly enough blood on his hands.

It turned out that she did not have to change countries. She just had to go about five-hundred miles south, to Krabi.

Krabi was flat, where Hong Kong was tall. Krabi was a string of beaches with a small town attached. Hong Kong was a big city... and maybe some beaches. Black Bat was not sure. She had not been to a beach in years. Krabi was full of tourists. Hong Kong was full of everything. She felt like a fish out of water the moment she arrived.

The good news was that Krabi was so small, compared to Hong Kong, that it did not take her long to find out what was going on. It did not take her long to find the police station and break into their case files. The translation software in her cowl read the texts, translated them, and put them into her ear in plain English. Lots of tourists in their early twenties dead from unsafe, spiked alcohol. Lots of drug smugglers dead from the drugs they hid in their bodies. Lots and lots of people, both tourists and locals, dead because of accidents on the road.

None of it surprised Black Bat. Southeast Asia was known for its insane traffic. Getting a license was more expensive than the fine for not having one and so most people never cared. Roads – outside of the main highways – were often unpaved, overcrowded, and in some places right next to unexploded ground mines. Accidents occurred often. Help was usually dozens of miles away. Many people died. Alcohol was often spiked, to save money. Usually methanol. Very toxic. Many people died. Thailand was an important transit country for drug smugglers. They made people swallow little packets or cut them up and put them into fake implants. If any of the bags broke, the courier was dead. Many people died.

Not everything was bad, of course, but when things got bad in Southeast Asia, they got really bad.

It also did not take her long to find Doctor Death’s possible hideouts. There were dozens of clinics in Krabi, but none of them big enough to store the equipment and the corpses needed. That left her with the four big hospitals.

She snuck into Muslim Ruam Paet Hospital first, disguised as a patient with bad stomach pain, with a latex mask on her face. They looked at her, then told her to wait. Black Bat did. She waited exactly as long as it took for the emergency personnel to not look at her. Then she melted into the shadows, down the hallway, following the signs. She had looked up the Thai word for ‘morgue’ the night before.

Ruam Paet was a bust. Black Bat was relieved. It was a good hospital, from what she had heard and seen. It would have been a shame to ruin its reputation.

Next up was Krabi Nakharin International Hospital. She pulled the same trick and came to the same result. Black Bat frowned and moved on to the public hospital. Less money than the private ones. Which also meant less personnel. And less security. This time, she did not bother playing the wounded gazelle. She changed into the suit, snuck in through a tilted window and stuck to the shadows as she hushed down the halls, fast and silent as a cat.

The morgue here was completely empty. Not a single body. Black Bat felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Oracle had once told her how no evidence at all was often better than some evidence. Something was wrong here. Someone was hiding something. She activated the lenses of her cowl and got to work.

There were no hidden doors or switches that she could see. None of the equipment matched what she knew Doctor Death would need to make Soul. The records were incomplete and shoddy. Her translation software could barely read half the hand-writing. She felt frustration bubble in her gut.

The door to the exit creaked sharply. Black Bat opened one of the drawers, jumped in, and locked herself up.

It was cold in the metal box, but she had had worse. From outside, the voices of two men sounded softly. Her cowl translated almost completely silently into her ear. Three dead teenagers. Drinking and driving. The coroner would get here in the morning. Black Bat waited until the door closed again and started counting.

She had reached one-hundred and eighty-one when the door opened again. Two different men were talking. In English. Black Bat listened with new intensity. They opened the drawers, removed the bodies and moved to the very back of the lap. Then a loud “bing” sounded.

 _The freight elevator_. Black Bat readied the little acid capsule. She counted to thirty, then doused the lock in acid. As soon as it popped, she pushed open the drawer and crawled out again. Then, she made her way upstairs to the rooftop of the hospital.

The warm night air greeted her like a fist to the face. For a moment she was dizzy. Black Bat shook her head and focused. An engine was starting to rumble and she was starting to run. She jumped just as they left the parking lot and landed on the truck with a soft thud. She crawled down the back and placed the tracker just underneath the muffler, then grappled up to the nearest building.

The truck headed north, out of the city. Black Bat followed, careful to keep three-hundred feet of distance. When she finally realized where they were going, she shuddered.

Krabi Mercy Hospital had been the last option on her list, a privately owned hospital, run by a non-profit with Thai and American owners. All the doctors were either retired professionals or volunteers from overseas. All the nurses and assistants were interns and international aid volunteers. Treatment here was almost for free, but it was restricted to the poorest of Thai’s population and only for the worst cases.

This place was a gift to the people of Krabi and the surrounding regions and Doctor Death was turning it into a drug lab. The thought made her blood boil. Black Bat took a deep breath and headed in.

It was the middle of the night and only few staff were around. A ‘skeleton crew’, if she understood that phrase correctly. Avoiding them as she slinked through the hallways was easy. Finding Doctor Death even more so.

He was in the basement, inspecting the fresh shipment with glee. It made Black Bat sick just to think about it. The machine was like a big tank, humming quietly as the doctor closed the lid and switched it on. Batman’s report on the operation in Gotham had said it liquefied the bodies. Doctor Death himself had said that each corpse only produced a drop of essence of Soul.

It was a drop more of a soul than he had.

She started with the doctor himself. Experience had taught her not to underestimate him. Black Wind had died because of that. She was not going to let anyone else die. Not here. Not because of this monster. Not ever. She kicked him right between the shoulder blades, landed on his back, and delivered a quick nerve strike to his neck. The doctor went limp under her.

The goons were next. Only one was armed and only with a pistol. He got off one shot, but he missed. She felt the bullet wisp past her ear, but her eyes were on him. The confidence on his face vanished quickly. His eyes widened, his brows climbed, his mouth fell open. A high-pitched yelp escaped his throat just as she grabbed the hands he was shoving in front of his body to block her and yanked them to the side. The reinforced portion of her suit on her forehead connected hard with his head and he went down.

The second man had picked up a long pipe and was ready to swing at her. Black Bat put her foot into his solar plexus, dropped the first guard, and went for another nerve strike. The pipe fell to the floor with a loud jingle, followed by the thud of the knocked out body. Black Bat closed her eyes, forced the disgust at what had happened here down where it belonged and retrieved the zip ties from her belt.

She was just about to finish tying up the last thug when she heard the tiniest patter of feet from the door to the stairs. Her muscles tensed right away, fingers curled around the batarang on instinct. She whirled around, ready to throw, and froze.

From the other side of the room, the old woman stared at her in shock. Her hair was a shining silver gray, her eyes were warm blue. There was shock in them. Shock and pain. Her lips trembled. So did her feet as she approached slowly, one tiny step at a time. The notepad fell from her delicate hands slowly, like in a movie.

Black Bat tried to breathe. She couldn’t.  _Why here? Why here of all places?_

What was Leslie Thompkins doing in Krabi? In Thailand? She had left Gotham long ago. Robin had said she had returned. But why was she here? She could not be here.

Leslie Thompkins walked forward carefully and stopped six feet in front of her. Suddenly, the tension fell from her body, like leaves from a tree. She took a deep breath, raised her left hand in front of her chest as if she wanted to pray, pushed her right fist against her palm, and bowed. The warrior’s bow.

“Cassandra...”

Black Bat started crying. She did not mean to. Now was not the time. She was on a mission. Bats did not cry on missions. Black Bat did not cry. Period.

But she was not. Suddenly, she was not Black Bat anymore. Suddenly, she was Cassandra Cain, seventeen-years old again, with nothing but the clothes on her back and Oracle’s tea and lessons. Suddenly, she was back in a ruined city, shaken by an earthquake and crawling with criminals. Suddenly, she was back in the clinic, delivering news to Doctor Thompkins, to Leslie, and getting kind words and gestures in return.

Suddenly, she was feeling warm and safe again, two warriors telling each other that they understood and that they would be ok.

Leslie, who tried so hard to safe everyone, even the worst of the worst. Leslie, who would never hurt, never kill. Leslie, who was not frightened by thugs or Joker or even Batman. Leslie, who was always kind and gentle. Leslie, who had a spine of steel and hands of velvet.

 _Leslie, who despises killing_ , Cassandra realized with bitterness.  _Leslie who saw a woman die because of you! Leslie who told you to get out! What would Leslie say if she knew that you really did kill Lynx? And Nyssa? And Annalea? And Lloyd Waite? And Bombshell?_

She would hate her. She would hate her and she would yell at her to leave again. Cass knew. _I deserve no better._

Her hands moved like in a dream, mirroring Leslie’s gesture. Then her feet moved as well and she was out the door and up the stairs before Leslie could even say a word.

***

It had been her. Leslie Thompkins sighed as she ditched her bag by the bedside drawer and sat down on the peach-colored sheets.  _It had been Cassandra._

_Cassandra Cain. Batgirl. Black Bat._

It had been years now, since they had last seen each other. Leslie remembered the encounter well and a shiver went down her spine in spite of the tropical air all around her. She remembered Gotham going up in flames and her clinic overflowing, bursting with new patients of both the criminal and civilian kind. She remembered the fight that had erupted on her door step, between a Chinese gang and Batgirl and how the gang leader – a girl who looked like she couldn’t have been much older than Cassandra herself – had died by the sword. Batman and his insufferable gang war had turned her clinic into a morgue. There had been nothing Leslie could have done to save that poor woman’s life and it had been the last straw to break this old camel’s back. All the anguish and grief and pain had come pushing up, like magma inside a volcano and Leslie had erupted. She had spewed her scorching fury at batgirl that night and the last words she had said to her before slamming a door in her face had been “Now get out!”

Those were the last words she had said to Cassandra, ever, and the thought still made her want to cry. Shortly after that night, Stephanie had been delivered onto Leslie’s doorstep, more dead than alive, tortured, and broken. Supposedly that had been Black Mask’s doing. Supposedly the gang war had been Stephanie’s. Leslie could literally not have cared less. This beautiful, fierce, young girl had nearly died that night. In some ways, given some of the damage that had been done to her body, it would have been kinder if she had, and Leslie blamed only one person for that: Batman.

She had never approved of Bruce bringing in  _children_  for this line of work. The mere idea was absolutely insane and every time she ran into Robin, every time she had to stitch one of them up or connect them to an IV or pump them full of antibiotics and painkillers she wanted to grab Bruce by the shoulders and shake him and yell at him.  _What the hell are you thinking?! Are you out of your mind?!_

She had never done it, though, because at the end of the day Bruce had always benefitted from the presence of the young ones, just as they had benefitted from him. Robin had made Batman less lonely and unapproachable and in a strange and twisted way, Dick, Jason, and Tim had helped keep Bruce grounded. Barbara, too, although she had always had a more natural distance from him and the mission. From what she had told Leslie, she had even decided to give up the cowl even before Joker had shot her.

Still, he  _had_ shot her and this time it was a wound that neither Leslie nor any other doctor had been able to fix. It was the first time that Leslie had been tempted, seriously tempted, to stop enabling Bruce in his nightly crusades.

Then, Jason had died. Jason, who had been so full of life and dreams, who had been so strong and fierce. The only thing that had kept Leslie from tearing into Bruce after that was that there had been nothing she could have said or done to hurt him any more than Jason’s loss had done. He already knew that he had made a horrible mistake.

And then he had taken on Tim Drake as another Robin. Leslie still remembered how her jaw had dropped when she had gotten the news and the little sting of discomfort in her gut had grown with every week.

But at the very least he had trained all of them properly. Dick, Jason, and Tim – they had all received the best training Bruce had been able to offer. They went into the fight prepared. Barbara and Cass hadn’t needed it. Cass, in particular, had been honed into being a supreme killing machine by her father and Barbara had been taking care of teaching her the investigative side of the job and how to have an actual life.

Stephanie was a different matter, though. She had been just as determined and fierce as any of the others, yet Bruce had categorically refused to train her properly, much less offer to make her part of the family. Leslie presumed it was because of Jason. So much about where Steph came from reminded her of him… it would have been a miracle if Bruce had not noticed the parallels as well, but that was no excuse. He had left her without training, without guidance, and it had backfired in a way that had wrecked the city, killed dozens of people, injured hundreds more, and ultimately broken the family apart.

Leslie had not been ready or willing to release Stephanie back into this madness and so she had faked her death. Bruce had found out half the truth, of course, as he usually did, but instead of investigating further, he had effectively banished her from Gotham. As much as Leslie had resisted back then, part of her had been relieved. She would no longer have to stitch up Bruce or any of his children. More importantly, she would be able to help Stephanie.

That hadn’t quite turned out the way she had planned. Everyone in that damned family was too stubborn for their own good.

So now, Dick was back in Blüdhaven, Tim, Barbara, and Stephanie were back in Gotham, Cassandra was once again on her own, and Leslie was once again operating out of her clinic in Crime Alley. Even Jason was apparently back from the dead and no-one seemed to care why or how, which was simply mind-blowing to her, though not as mind-blowing as the realization that eventually sent her over the brink of exhaustion and into the realm of sleep.

All the death and violence and nothing had changed.

***

Her last night shift at the hospital had been as dull as the fourth one had been exciting and Leslie was grateful for it. All the surgeries on her schedule had gone off without a hitch. The police had done their utmost to keep the horrifying happenings that had been uncovered hidden from the public and aside from Leslie, no-one in the hospital knew. If she hadn’t been walking past the maintenance stairs just as a shot rang out, she would never have known either. The two days of vacation she had had at the end of it all had certainly helped, although they had been plagued by her mind going in circles.

Now, as she sat on the porch of her little bamboo hut on the western shore of Koh Săng Kăao, White Conch Island, with the soothing lull of the high tide against the sand just twenty feet to her right and the stars glittering like diamonds above her, Leslie felt nothing but regret.

She should have said more to her than just “Cassandra”. She should have offered to talk, at least.

Leslie took a deep breath, looked at the dark waves, and suddenly she was there. Just as if she had materialized out of a wish on a star that Leslie hadn’t know she had made. Leslie blinked.

She was not in the suit. The tank top she was wearing was dark, most likely black. The pants were the same light, loose, elephant-printed variation of fisherman’s pants that most tourists in Southeast Asia were wearing. There was no cowl to mask her face, only dark, soft hair falling just over her shoulders and moving lightly in the wind.

For just a moment, Cassandra Cain looked like a normal, young woman on a holiday in Thailand.

“Hello Cassandra.” Leslie’s hands moved to the tea set in front of her, pouring the second cup in addition to her own on sheer automatic, but her eyes remained on Cassandra. Part of her was pretty sure the girl would vanish if she so much as blinked. “Would you like to join me for tea?”

Cassandra’s face remained unchanged, but her fist clenched and unclenched quickly. Yes. No. She clearly couldn’t decide. Leslie picked up the second cup and held it towards her with a slight bow.

Cass stepped forward slowly and accepted it with a curt nod, before sitting down cross-legged on the other side of the tiny side-table. There was turmoil in her eyes and Leslie could all but see the hairs stick up on the back of her neck. She shifted on her small bench and took a tentative sip from her own cup.

“I’m glad you came to visit me before I go back to Gotham,” Leslie finally started after a solid minute of tea-sipping silence. “I should have asked you when we met at the hospital. I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok.” Her voice sounded small enough to cleave Leslie’s heart straight in two. Quiet, hesitant, filled with trepidation and regret. “I’m sorry, too, Leslie.”

She wanted to ask what for, but somehow Leslie Thompkins had a feeling that would not go over well and so she merely nodded. They sat in silence for another minute, before Leslie finally found the courage to continue.

“I heard you are working in Hong Kong now. Do you like it there?”

“It’s fine,” Cass said. ‘It’s not Gotham’, was what swung underneath the words she swallowed back down.

“You could always go back, you know.” Leslie took another sip and sighed. “Stephanie would love to see you again, I’m sure. Tim and Barbara miss you. Bruce and Dick would never say it, but I’m sure they miss you, too.”

“Dick hates me,” Cass blurted out almost instantly, before burying her face in her tea. Her fingers gripped the cup like a vice. “After the Outsiders… and before that… he’s probably happy I’m far away.”

“Before that?” Leslie watched her flinch at the question and instantly regretted asking. Clearly there were some deep emotional wounds here that no-one in the family had bothered to educate her about. Tim had only given her the cold, hard facts. What else was new? “I, for one, would be happy to have you back in Gotham.”

Cassandra raised her head slowly, big brown eyes looking up at Leslie in a mixture of sadness, nostalgia, and… fear? That made no sense. Leslie shifted uncomfortably and of course Cassandra picked up on it instantly. She bit her lip.

“A lot happened.” And then, a moment and a deep breath later: “You would just tell me to leave again.”

“Nonsense.” Leslie shook her head. “What I said back then was an angry outburst and it was wrong. You will never be unwelcome on my doorstep, Cassandra.”

“Even if I killed?”

The sentence hung above them like the sword of Damocles. Leslie forced every single conscious thought she had into  _not_ letting her body do the instinctive cringe that wanted to come. It probably didn’t work half as well as she hoped. Cassandra could read anyone like an open book.

“That was not your choice.” She had heard all about it. Cain and Deathstroke and the League of Assassins and all that. She had hear about Gotham and Blüdhaven and Platinum Flats.

“I have killed five people,” Cass said with a chilling finality. “Six, including the one when I was eight.”

“And yet Bruce has forgiven you.” Leslie felt a smile curve her lips just a little as she reached out and took Cass’ hands into her own. “Cassandra… If even Bruce has found it in his heart to forgive you, what makes you think I wouldn’t?”

“Dick hasn’t.”

Leslie sighed. “Dick can be a stubborn, hot-headed fool and he knows how to hit people where it really hurts, physically and emotionally. Does that sound like me?”

Cassandra shook her head and bit her lip harder.

“If anything at all,  _I_ should apologize to  _you_.” That made Cass look up in confusion. Leslie took a deep breath and prepared herself for what was undoubtedly going to be a painful confession for everyone. “I faked Stephanie’s death. After Barbara… after Jason… Stephanie was the last straw. I just could not watch Bruce put another one of you into so much danger. I wanted to make him stop. I wanted to make him fire all of you. Instead, he chased all of us out of Gotham. I deserved it, I won’t deny that, but his behavior towards Barbara was just shameful and leaving the rest of you alone in your grief was a terrible choice. Looking back now…” Leslie swallowed hard. “Barbara and Stephanie were your closest friends. I took one of them away from you and Bruce drove away the other. I take full responsibility for that.”

“No.” Cassandra flinched. “It was not your fault. I don’t blame you.”

“Those are not the same thing, Cassandra.” Leslie squeezed her hands and looked straight into her eyes. “Cassie, I need you to understand this, so please listen carefully: fault and blame are not the same thing. What you did was wrong, but you were not in control of your own actions. Nothing you can do now will bring these people back to life. No amount of self-blaming. No amount of self-punishment. You should never forget what happened, what you did, but you need to learn to forgive yourself.” At last, Leslie let go of her hands. She sank back in her bench.

“I hid Stephanie’s survival from all of you. I made a cruel choice and it had horrible consequences. That is my fault. Nothing will ever change that, but continuing to blame myself for it will not undo all the tragedy that came from it. I had to move on, Cassandra. I had to forgive myself.”

She was quiet for a long time. Behind those chocolate brown eyes, thoughts were racing. Every once in a while, Cassandra nibbled at her tea. She looked at the cups, the kettle, the hut, and, finally, the sea.

“Is that why you came to Thailand?”

“It’s why I’ve been sticking around for two days of vacation after my work here is done,” Leslie replied with a wry smile. “When I went to Africa with Stephanie, I worked in one of the local, public hospitals, because I knew if I went to the international, privatized ones, Bruce would find out somehow. I learned a lot there. About myself. About how much Gotham had clouded and restricted the way I looked at my job and at the people around me.” She finished her cup and put it down next to the kettle. “Do not get me wrong: I am glad that I returned to Gotham. I am glad that Stephanie returned, too, but we have promised each other to spend at least three weeks per year out of that hellhole for our sanity and it is working beautifully.”

Cassandra smiled. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, so Leslie doubted all the lessons had sunk in yet, but that was okay. There was no speed lane to recovery. She was not going to push. She got up slowly, stretched out her old bones and shrugged out of the light cardigan and the elephant print skirt she had put on over her swimsuit.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me. I am going for a swim.”

“Now?” Cassandra raised an eyebrow. “It is in the middle of the night.”

“Exactly. Midnight on a new moon, is the best time to go swimming in these waters, because the high tide brings in bioluminescent plankton from the sea.”

“Bio-lu-mi-nes-cent.” It was a complicated word. Cass wrinkled her nose at the mix of different sounds.

“It means there are thousands of tiny creatures in the water that glow in the dark.” The sand was still cooler than the air under her feet, but that didn’t mean much. It was still more than warm enough for Leslie’s tastes. It almost made her miss Gotham’s cold rain and snow. “You are welcome to join me, if you want. Swimming can be very relaxing and cleansing. Physically and emotionally.”

It was perfect weather, too. There was only the tiniest breeze, but the sea was calm. The waves were crashing softly against the shore. Leslie started walking, slowing down just a little as her feet finally hit the water.

It was cold at first. For a split second, the temperature difference between the sea and the air made her want to recoil, but she kept going. All healing usually started with a little bit of discomfort. Soon enough, the water seemed warm enough and the white conch shells for which the island had been named disappeared from sight as her knees and thighs disappeared in the waves. She kept on going until the water went up to her neck and a soft splash behind her made her turn around.

Cassandra was entering the sea even more cautiously then Leslie had. She wasn’t sure if that was just natural suspicion or if Cain had neglected to teach her how to swim. She doubted that, since it would be awfully inconvenient for an assassin who had to adapt to a variety of different environments, but she decided to keep a close eye on the girl just in case.

Cass, being a head shorter than Leslie, had to start swimming to reach her. The moment she did, the water came alive around her. A myriad of bright yellow, white, and blue spots danced and glowed around every move of her arms and feet, startling a yelp out of her and making her retreat back to where she could stand. Leslie laughed.

“I told you: bioluminescent plankton. The fireflies of the sea. They are beautiful, aren’t they?”

To prove her point, Leslie started swimming. Every inch she moved started a firework beneath the water, brighter than the stars, brighter than the lights in some of the other huts. It was one of the most comforting things she had ever experienced – to know that even in Mother Nature light could sometimes be found in the darkest places. She kept going for a few yards, then circled back around to Cassandra. She still seemed skeptical about swimming, but she was moving her hands underneath the water, watching the colors dance around her.

“You’re right, Leslie. They are pretty.”

“So start swimming.” Leslie gave her a slight nudge. “Please don’t tell me you jumped into the ocean fully clothed just to stand here.”

Cassandra shrugged, but if Leslie wasn’t completely mistaken – it was hard to judge in the middle of the night – she was also blushing.

“Do you really think they would be happy if I returned to Gotham? Stephanie. Bruce. Tim.” She grimaced. “Dick.”

“Don’t forget Jason.” Leslie rolled her eyes. “You may never have met him and he might not be on the right path right now, but he is technically your brother and I think he would be delighted to know he has a sister. But to answer your question: yes, I think they would be. Even Dick. The more important question though is: would you be happy?”

Leslie gave her shoulder a re-assuring squeeze and headed out into the waves again. She didn’t expect an immediate answer.

Still, it was great to see Cassandra swimming after her when she looked back.


End file.
